Forums | MacLife

Bat wrote:

Cyberpawz wrote:

Ok, and once you come back to reality I'll continue conversation with you... thanks

I must be out of touch, too- I think this has finally become likely.

Oh, and CP, so does Tuncer at IMG:

http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/ind … opic=20447

I meant the way he finished the post, as "cute" to people here think it is, it's highly immature.

In any case even if Apple goes with Intel chips so? It's not the Chip that makes the computer, it's everything else... or lack of.

<= What I wanted to do when I heard the news...

Well with that out of the way, I can see only a few reasons behind this.
1. The low end Macs become Intel for cost reasons.
2. An upcoming product will use an Intel chip for cost reasons.
3. A version of the Xserve will be based on Intel chips. (Already demoed)
4. Jobs has gone insane.
5. Intel will produce PPC chips.

Any of those first 4 are possible.

Personally, I can't see Apple leaving PPC in the dust. So much time and investment has gone into it.

This seems like a very risky move from Apple. If they move to x86 (PC), it will only be a matter of weeks till a ROM flash/mod is available to let your 3.6Ghz PC to run OS X. The end of Windows and the end of Apple's hardware. Still, they wouldn't be that stupid...would they?

Bat wrote:

You're not going to get away from leetspeak on an Internet forum, especially from the young. Fact of life. Endure, or don't, but snippiness gets nowhere.

As to a change from PPC to x86, it'd be the biggest news from Apple since Jobs came back.

I don't know about either of those points... but meh...

The news isn't that amazing really, I don't know why people seem to really be amazed... I have a feeling it's either going to be Intel, or they are going back to Motorola... either way this isn't an unexpected move.

The whole point of Mac and being a MacAddict is PPC, Mac OS and the History.I know it's a rather pointless argument in the wake of big business, but its taking the heard out of Apple. Come-on, Intel?!

reece_james wrote:

The whole point of Mac and being a MacAddict is PPC, Mac OS and the History.I know it's a rather pointless argument in the wake of big business, but its taking the heard out of Apple. Come-on, Intel?!

How is it taking the head out of Apple?

reece_james wrote:

Whoops, I meant heart.

Teach me to type off a response at 1 in the morning...

And I'll still ask, how is it taking the heart out of Apple?

reece_james wrote:

No, you asked the 'head' where as I said 'heard' the first time.

Basically, the CPU makes the difference. The Apple CPUs have always been the heart of the machine. 68k and PPC made Apple different, if anything is to be called the 'heart' of a Mac, it has to be the CPU.

If Apple made their own CPU I'd agree....

As for me, the heart of the Mac is the OS...  the hardware doesn't matter as much...

Now here is a really cool little idea...

IBM is having problems increasing clock speed and producing chips. Intel has clock speed and an abundance of chips. We also know that Apple has written support for more than 2 CPUs into OS X. Could they be considering a blend? Using 2 different CPUs in the one machine? One CPU for raw processing power, one for complex operations?

I just came back from reading an article on Cnet news and it appears that it is no longer a rumor anymore and is in fact something that is going to happen. Myself, I don't like the idea of having Apple switch over to Intel. I don't think Mac will be the same and I don't think that this is going to help Apple. Instead, I think it is going to hurt them because part of the uniqueness of Apple will be gone.

Could it also be a marketing ploy to blow your minds on Monday? Or a way of telling IBM that they had better get off their laurels and start producing? Intel  has vast resources and experience. They could start producing PPC chips and possibly the next generation.

buddamars wrote:

Could it also be a marketing ploy to blow your minds on Monday? Or a way of telling IBM that they had better get off their laurels and start producing? Intel  has vast resources and experience. They could start producing PPC chips and possibly the next generation.

Has it occurred to you that Intel (and AMD) have also had major problems in scaling their chips? IBM isn't doing a bad job, they're just slowing down with the rest of the industry. Also, Apple and IBM don't show off their products before they're ready to release it, while Intel and AMD like to brag about their new products before they get to the market, so it often seems like IBM isn't doing anything, while, in fact, they are.

Also, with regards to the CNet article, I noticed that they don't cite anything but the Wall Street Journal articles, and they seem to only rely on speculation. IMO, it's not going to happen.

reece_james wrote:

Technically a Mac has always had a PPC chip. (It wasn't until the Yikes that it became a Mac)

What?? I'm not following you. That doesn't make any sense...

Also, early macs used 680x0 processors.  In what was also a big controversy at the time, Apple moved to using PPC chips that had been developed jointly by Apple, Motorola and IBM.  The 601 PPC chips (technically the G1 series) were fast enough from the get go to emulate 680x0 code with very little performance loss.  But code written for the PowerPC could not be run on 68k macs. Which was ok because developers could still write programs for the old hardware and it would run just fine on the new hardware.  By the time the "G2" (603 and 604 PPC) came around the developers were distributing PowerPC optimized versions of their software along side the 68k versions, or the two wrapped in one large "FAT Binary" version.  When the G3 hit the market the 68k macs were all but gone and apple killed support for them at OS 8.1.  It was a turbulent transition, but about as smooth of one as the industry has probably ever seen.

A move from PPC to Intel could never be as smooth.  Unless Intel has come up with a spectacular leap forward in semiconductor technology that out performs current chip design, like the PPC did to 680x0, there will be no backwards emulation, leaving developers and users in a very tight spot.  Which is why I don't think the switch is happening.

AMD has better processors but here's why Apple's not using AMD ....

IBM manufactures AMD chips

And just because Apple MAY be using Intel chips in the mini doesn't mean you'll have a port of Mac OS X that will run on a pc.  there's more involved there.  and since Apple's business model revolves around selling hardware ... i can guarrantee that won't happen.  though i wonder if maybe they're introducing a Darwin fueled Linux like OS for X86. 

waiting for monday ....


b

Last edited by b_dubb (2005-06-05 12:03 am)